


Dean Winchester, Practicing Bisexual

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexuality, Coming Out, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 04:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2569061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Dean makes some stunning personal discoveries through the power of song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blame it on the Girls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blame it on the Girls - Mika

Charlie’s been fully apprised. She knows the rules—driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole. But, Charlie’s not a he and as much as she appreciates the odd classic rock song (there’s seriously _so much Tolkein_ in Zeppelin), there’s no way she’s listening to Blue Öyster Cult for the whole damn ride.

It speaks to how thoroughly she’s ingratiated herself with Dean that all he does is give her a dirty look when she turns off the tape deck and whips out her iPod. Dean could stand some horizon expansion.

He makes a disgusted noise when Britney is the first thing to come out of the tinny portable speakers, and fine, inauspicious start, but really, Dean’s a musical snob. Who doesn’t like Toxic?

They talk, presumably because Dean prefers the sound of his own voice to upbeat pop and dance hits, but not about anything of consequence, and eventually they fall silent. A Mika song comes on in the lull, and Charlie squirms with excitement and maybe just a twinge of embarrassment. This is one of the queerest songs in her musical library, and she has the complete works of The Indigo Girls, so that’s saying something. 

Predictably, Dean isn’t happy.

“What the hell, Charlie?” he snaps.

“What?” She feigns ignorance.

Dean waves one hand wildly around in a way that makes her question his control of the vehicle. 

“What’s with this dude? _Blame it on the girls, blame it on the boys_. Which is it?” 

“You’ve never heard the word _bisexual_ , Winchester?” Charlie scoffs.

Dean rolls his eyes, “Well, yeah, but that’s just for college coeds and guys who are too chicken shit to come all the way out of the closet.”

Now, just because Charlie knows quite a few subscribers to the bi now, gay later payment plan doesn’t mean that she considers bisexuality a gay stepping-stone. And sure, when she’d been young and confused she’s tried out the bisexual label, too, but just because it didn’t work out for her doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work for tons of people.

She’s in the middle of explaining this to Dean when she sees it. It’s just a little wiggle in his scowl, it barely wobbles out of existence for a second, but it’s enough to see that he’s actually nervous.

It doesn’t take a totally hot genius hacker babe to put two and two together. The first two being the moment of genuine anxiety and the other two being the crazy amounts of sexual tension between him and Dick Roman’s security dude.

“It’s just weird, alright. I mean, you’re one or the other.” Dean argues back during Charlie’s temporary incapacitation due to the stunning blow to the head that is getting a clue.

“Dude, no. Some people like both, and that’s totally cool.”

She thinks about putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder in a bro way, just so he knows she’s there, but Dean already looks like he’s wishing the Impala had an ejector seat. She sighs as she refrains, but damn if she doesn’t hit replay.

What? She _likes_ this song.


	2. You Shook Me All Night Long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam thinks he's funny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC

They’re rocketing down a midwestern highway and Sam can almost believe it’s like old times. He doesn’t even really remember where they’re going, and he thinks if he pressed Dean, his brother would come up empty, too. Hair metal blares from the Impala’s speakers and Sam swears it’s like every day of his childhood all rolled into one. Well, he gets to sit shotgun now, which is different, but not much else is.

He’s not sure why he’s feeling so maudlin today. Nostalgia crept out from the dark corners of his mind and buffeted him with memories of Amelia the moment he’d woken up, and frankly, it’s been all he can do not to cry in front of Dean.

What’s worse than thinking about Amelia is that today the thoughts of his brief stint with domesticity have brought with them reminders of his last stint with domesticity.

Jessica. He’s been thinking about Jess. Wanting to be with Amelia, to build a life with her has reminded him rudely of the last time he’d been prepared to share his life with someone. Hell, he’d been only twenty-two back then, but he’d wanted nothing more than to go to law school, get married and have two kids (he’d already picked out their names: Dean and Mary. He’d never tell his brother for obvious reasons, and it’s not like it’ll ever happen now, so the point is moot).

When he closes his eyes against the brightness of the sun setting on the horizon, the light still breaks through, and for a moment it manifests as flames, and he’s reliving that night eight years ago.

He needs to distract himself, and when Dean asks him to switch out the tape, he gladly picks out the loudest one he can get his hands on and pops it in. When the unmitigated wall-of-sound ubiquitous to AC/DC pumps into the car, Dean smiles at Sam like Sam’s Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy all in one.

It’s nice that Dean forgets for a moment to be pissed at him. A pang tightens Sam’s chest, but he doesn’t let it sour the moment. Instead, he casts about for a topic.

An obscure fact, buried by years of mayhem and violence bubbles up to the surface, and Sam actually chuckles.

“What’s so funny?” Dean asks, instantly suspicious. 

“I just remembered something from my Stanford days,” Sam begins. The atmosphere in the car is still more relaxed than it’s been in freaking _years_ , but he still needs to be careful of his footing.

“Yeah, and?”

Sam snorts at Dean’s impatience.

“Back in our sophomore year, Jess took this LGBT history class. It was really interesting, and I always meant to take it, but it never fit into my schedule.”

“Aw, good for you, Sammy. Learning about your own people.”

“Very funny, Dean.”

He’s rewarded with a smug smile. It’s bittersweet, but nothing in Sam’s life recently has been sweet at all, so he takes his lumps.

“I know,” Dean says, thinking he’s won the round. “You had a point you were getting to, I assume?”

“I can’t believe I never told you about it before, honestly,” Sam says, shaking his head to dispel thoughts of Jess that, as always, threaten to drag him under. This is a _happy_ memory, and he should be allowed to have it. “AC/DC used to be slang for someone who, you know, swung both ways.” 

“Come again?” Dean says flatly.

“Yeah, I always figured it was pretty funny since you practically worship them.”

“You shut your damn mouth,” Dean all but snarls, and _whoa._ Sure, Sam had been trying to get a rise out of Dean, but he doesn’t expect to get his head bitten off.

“Can’t, man,” Sam says placidly. “You know the drill, history’s set in stone, your favorite band is gay slang; nothing I can do about it.”

“Zep’s my favorite band,” Dean mutters, sullen. He’s looking at the road like he’s trying to melt it with the sheer power of his gaze, and Sam really didn’t intend to get this level of reaction. It kind of makes him wish he’d brought this little factoid up with John, just to see the old man’s face. It would have been apoplectic and totally priceless.

Swiftly, the trip down memory lane turns bad. Thoughts of his father unfailingly bring his mood down somewhere between angry and furious. It’s not just Dean who’s pissed now.

Sam tries to shake it, honestly, but he can’t. Instead, he lets out a noisy breath and fumes silently. At least, he acknowledges, they’re not fighting about Purgatory.


	3. Son of a Preacher Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief history lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield

They pass the night waiting for Sam to show up drinking cheap beer and listening to an oldies station on a piece of shit radio. Benny’s still getting used to  _oldies_  meaning songs that came out roughly around the time he died the first time (second time? Damn if it doesn't get confusing). Still, he prefers it to any of the loud nonsense that Dean likes and prefers both to the new garbage that passes for music these days.

Benny isn’t sure what it means to drop the bass, but he is sure he doesn’t like it a damn bit. 

Dusty Springfield begins crooning in that sexy voice of hers and he smiles softly. He likes her and her total refusal to put up with any nonsense, and he’s even been through the periodical sections of a few libraries to read up on her.

He had a lot of time on his hands before everything went belly-up. 

“Back in the day, before my maker had me unmade, she was only just getting famous.”

Benny takes a pensive sip of his beer and lets the bluesy chords ease him into a comfort he hasn’t known in half a century.  Even with Andrea gone now, it’s been so long since he hasn’t had to look over his shoulder that he’s borderline euphoric at the moment.

“She’s no Janis, but whatever floats your boat, man,” Dean allows in a moment of either temperance or temporary insanity. 

“Ironic that this is the song she’s known for, in the end.”

“How’s that?”

“For all she sang about that son of that preacher man, she spent a hell of a lot of time up close and personal with other women.”

Dean coughs like he’s just swallowed his own tongue.

Benny waits for him to finish choking on spit so he can explain himself.

Back in his day, it wasn’t the sort of thing you talked about, but everyone knew about what went on behind closed doors. He’d have thought that in the intervening fifty years this shit would’ve been all aboveboard.

Hell, he  _knows_ it is. He’s seen ads for that Glee show. 

“Didn’t know she was gay,” Dean finally splutters, looking everywhere but at Benny.

Curious. Benny’s never known Dean to play bashful. Maybe this is what he’s like when he doesn’t have monsters out for his blood, but it seems painfully out of character.

“No, she was real specific about that. She didn’t care which way the wind blew, if you catch my meaning.”

Dean’s eyes harden and Benny’s wary as Dean’s jaw pops with tension.

After spending as much time in Purgatory with Dean as he has, Benny’d recognize that look anywhere.

Dean’s gearing up for a fight, and damn if Benny knows why. 

“You ever feel like the whole world’s out to get you?” Dean asks between gritted teeth.

Benny chuckles huskily. “Only every day of my afterlife, brother.”

Dean nods sharply, says, “Right,” and drains his beer in one long, impressive drag. 

Dusty’s voice fades away, and Benny turns the radio off, because it seems like the right thing to do. Something’s gone and crawled up Dean’s ass, and Benny’s not keen to make things any worse.

He gets up, wondering to himself what Dusty Springfield ever did to Dean Winchester, and pulls another pair of bottles out for them. If he knows anything, it’s that alcohol doesn’t heal, but it does patch things up for an hour or two. Hopefully that’s all Dean needs.

It seems like he’s made the right choice when Dean sighs gratefully and takes his beer.

Benny isn’t willing to sweep this blip under the rug completely, but for the sake of keeping the piece he’ll hold his tongue.


	4. Killer Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin Tran didn't take AP Bi Panic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Killer Queen - Queen
> 
> Warning for use of the word "queen" as a gay slur.

There’s never any downtime. Not really. So Kevin automatically distrusts Dean when he says they’re going to party. 

Kevin thinks fondly of girls and frats and keggers and all the things he might have had by now if his life had turned out differently. Somehow he’s not surprised when the actual party involves buying records from a garage sale and drinking frankly disgusting liquor (Kevin doesn’t care what vintage it is).

The shindig is comprised of him and Dean and the record player that Dean hasn’t had the chance to try out yet. Given the circumstances, Kevin knows he should be honored when Dean lets him pick the first album out of the box to play on the decrepit-looking thing. He should be, and yet he’s unmoved.

There’s nothing that Kevin would have listened to if given the opportunity—no Justin Timberlake or anything, obviously, but also no Yo-Yo Ma or Alisa Weilerstein. He shudders when he passes a B52s album and despairs of ever actually finding something when he hits the jackpot.

He’d read _Good Omens_ the summer before his entire life went to shit, and while he’s sure Dean would never get the joke, he’s playing it anyway: Queen’s _Greatest Hits_.

He hides the cover jealously from Dean as he slides the record out and sets it on the round part of the player, but because he has no idea how to work the damn thing, he has to cede his place to Dean.

To his surprise, Dean doesn’t veto his choice when Bohemian Rhapsody begins to play. He smirks a little, so Kevin knows he’s being judged for his choice, but this is his first party ever basically and he’s not going to let Dean’s musical superiority complex ruin it.

Whether or not there’s really anything to ruin is an entirely separate debate, but as Kevin shudders his way through a shot of something brown (gin? Gin is brown, isn’t it? God, Kevin really never got to live at all before this Dan Brown quagmire that is his reality) he finds he doesn’t care.

He’s finally getting a break from the freaking translations that have been driving him up the wall. What more can he expect?

“Heh, Killer _Queen_ ,” Dean chuckles, because for all that Kevin is the teenager in this relationship, Dean has obviously yet to exit puberty.

“Funny,” Kevin deadpans.

“What? It _is_ funny—‘cause Freddie Mercury was gay,” Dean elaborates despite Kevin’s look that says _shut the hell up, Dean._

“You think a gay man could write a song like this?” He’s pointedly silent so Dean can listen to the man rhapsodize about some unnamed woman who’s _gunpowder_ and _gelatine_ and _dynamite_ _with a laser beam_ before continuing triumphantly.

“He was bi,” Kevin affirms with all the conviction of a boy whose missing mother let him listen to Queen as a treat when he mastered a particularly difficult cello piece.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dean exclaims. His hand tightens menacingly around the shot glass he’s holding and Kevin wonders idly if he’ll ever be able to have a normal human interaction with the Winchesters. Either of them, really, but Dean in particular. Sam at least treats him like a human, and Kevin had thought that maybe this little night off was Dean’s way of reaching out, of saying _sorry for being such a douche and treating you like a freaking tool and also for letting your mother rot_. He guesses not. Instead it's just another example of Dean utterly failing to talk to Kevin.

Somehow, the explosion doesn’t even faze him. 

“What’s the problem?” Kevin asks, not entirely caring what Dean has to say for himself and his outburst.

“Everyone’s a bisexual now. What the hell?”

“Uh, Freddie Mercury’s been dead for a few decades. I don’t think he really—“

“This ain’t _A Shot at Love_ with Tila fucking Tequila,” Dean fumes, steamrolling Kevin’s extremely valid point in favor of making the most uncomfortable reference Kevin’s ever been subjected to.

He’s going to shelve that one for when he needs ammunition.

“Am I supposed to apologize? For the sexuality of a rock star who’s been dead, I repeat, for longer than I’ve been alive?”

Dean stalks over to the coffee table to pour himself more gin-maybe-not-gin, and he grumbles as it sloshes over the rim from his rough handing.

Kevin’s surprised when he holds out the bottle (bourbon, he reads on the label), but he doesn’t hesitate to accept. Dean’s probably a little more tolerable when all parties involved are buzzed.

Kevin watches with wide eyes as Dean swallows the entire contents of his glass in one smooth gulp and sips hesitantly at his own, trying not to gag. 

“It’s not just Freddie Mercury, damn it,” Dean says, glowering at the wall.

Before he has the chance to think better of it, Kevin offers tentatively, “Do you want to, uh, talk about it?” Advanced Placement or not, Kevin’s always been a little bit stupid. Or maybe naïve was the better word.

Kevin is glad that Dean isn’t an angel, because the look he gets tells him that if Dean were capable of smiting things, Kevin would be an empty, eyeless husk on the floor right about now. He swallows nervously.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Dean grind out in a frustrated growl, “but suddenly everyone’s got something to tell me about some damn bisexuals.”

Kevin doesn’t really have time for Dean’s macho biphobic bullshit, so he’s not entirely sympathetic when he says, “Oh man, that must suck: being surrounded by people who aren’t exactly the same as you. I mean, I watched Crowley snap my girlfriend’s neck, and I have no clue if my mom’s alive or dead, but yeah, Dean, boo hoo.”

Dean opens his mouth to say something, but Kevin cuts him off.

“You’d think someone who fights demons on a daily basis wouldn’t be afraid of a few gay people, but what do I know?”

Kevin’s expecting wrath—heaps of it. He’s expecting things to go flying and possibly a few punches to be thrown. He’s waiting on tenterhooks for Dean to go off, to yell _you don’t know anything_ and throw his glass for the satisfaction of hearing it shatter.

Instead, he barely hears when Dean says, “They’re not _gay_. They’re bi.” 

Kevin takes a drink, wincing as it goes down, and all he can think about as he watches Dean having a minor existential crisis is that he could really use more bourbon.


	5. Vicious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel drops the ball big time, but he recovers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vicious - Lou Reed
> 
> For those curious, Lou Reed underwent involuntary electroconvulsive therapy as a teenager. Surprisingly enough, it didn't work.

Things are strained between him and Dean, but Castiel is put at ease by the knowledge that for he and Dean circumstances are rarely otherwise. He can sense that Dean is hurting, worried about Sam foremost but also dealing with an inner turmoil that Castiel cannot understand without reading his mind.

He won’t do that to Dean. He’s learned a lot about humanity and the high premium it places on the sanctity of thought. With the thoughts Castiel’s recently had, he can’t find that he blames them for their intense privacy.

He and Dean are in Dean’s car, Dean’s strident insistence overriding protestations regarding the ease with which Castiel could fly them to their destination and back. Dean had muttered something incomprehensible about the journey being more important than the destination, and Cas had found it simply easier to acquiesce.

Dean puts him in charge of the music, testing Cas to see how much he remembers from Dean’s ongoing attempts to introduce Castiel to popular culture.

“I’m feeling something low key. I’m not stoned enough for Dylan, but something like it would be great.”

Castiel immediately sifts through all the miscellaneous musical knowledge he’s managed to accumulate after four years of Dean’s acquaintance and says, “I’ll do my best,” warily. He consciously doesn’t remind Dean of the dangers of driving while inebriated, and since he isn’t likely to receive it from any other quarter, he congratulates himself.

His hands sift hopelessly through Dean’s collection of cassettes before he comes upon a tape labeled _Transformer_ , and he thinks that it could be exactly what Dean was hoping for, though not quite what he’d asked for.

“Vicious? I’m not complaining, man, but you sort of failed to deliver here.” 

“That sounds like complaining to me,” Castiel points out, just shy of defensive.

“Yeah, maybe. This is fine, though.”

He lets the matter rest for the moment, and Castiel is grateful for the time to reflect.

Ordinarily Dean would laugh and poke fun at him for his misstep, take the opportunity to rib him for his alienness. His reticence gives Cas pause. The impulse to lure the irreverent side of Dean into the open is overwhelming, and Cas wonders at his own vehemence.

He isn’t sure _why_ it surprises him any more the lengths to which he will go to try to arrange for Dean’s happiness, but logic has not had a place in his relationship with Dean from its inception.

“He reminds me of you.” Castiel mentions, because Dean is flattered by comparisons with rock stars, and Castiel is not beyond cheap bids of flattery by any means

“You’re making me blush, Cas,” Dean deflects out of hand, self-deprecating and caustic under a joking façade.

“I’m being serious, Dean. He underwent what could easily be called torture for years and still came out on the other side untarnished.”

“Torture? No shit. What for?” 

Castiel continues, pleased to have captured Dean’s attention and avoided another episode of Dean’s insistence that he’s been somehow ruined by his time spent in Hell.

“To cure him of his bisexuality. That's another similarity between the two of you.”

Castiel is glad he’s wearing his seatbelt when Dean suddenly slams on the breaks.

A car honks behind them, and Dean pulls over to the side of the road, forehead buckling in a deep scowl.

Somehow, Castiel has managed to make the situation worse. It seems to be an uncanny talent of his.

“Want to run that by me one more time?” Dean challenges.

Castiel realizes his error immediately.

“Not really,” he says, cautious. He’d forgotten for a moment, stupidly and foolishly, that Dean loathes to be reminded that Castiel knows him. Knows him beyond the walls and masks he’s cultivated over years of emotional turmoil and atrophy.

“Fuck that. I’m not, you know. _Whatever_.”

“Alright, Dean,” Castiel sighs.

“No, not _alright, Dean_. I’m not gay,” Dean persists, hands gripping and releasing the steering wheel twitchily. 

“I didn’t say you were,” Castiel says, attempting to placate Dean and missing by a considerable margin.

It’s unfortunate that Cas can say he’s seen Dean this angry before, but the circumstances are wildly incongruous between those times and this. Dean saves this level of vitriol for acts of betrayal or violence against Sam. Castiel, lamentably, knows this first-hand. 

Dean’s nostrils flare and his cheek twitches from tremendous pressure placed on his jaw, and Castiel carefully considers how best to defuse this situation.

“I am not _bisexual_ either,” Dean spits the word out as though it’s offended him, and perhaps it has.

Castiel has had a glimpse of Dean’s formative years, necessary in the reconstruction of his body and soul, and he can imagine the hardship of having a nontraditional orientation when living in constant fear of disappointing an absent father.

_Imagine_ isn’t the correct word. He lives it just as much as Dean does.

It’s this conviction, that he and Dean are united in their condition, that leads him to press where he might have otherwise yielded.

“Your sexuality is nothing to be ashamed of,” Castiel presses softly. 

“It’s not my sexuality!” 

“Do you expect me to accept that, Dean? When you and I both know that you’ve been attracted to men all your life?”

“The fuck would you know?” Dean demands, furiously. As cars on the highway drive by, they rock the Impala, and Castiel looks on into the night instead of at Dean. Sometimes Dean can’t bear to have Cas’s eyes on him, and while Cas doesn’t wholly understand, he can humor this.

“There is not an aspect of your soul that I am not intimately familiar with,” Castiel says firmly, brokering no protest or dissent.

“You can’t just pull secrets out of people, Cas,” Dean argues, face suddenly flushed bright. Castiel is bewildered by the change, and he aches to reach out and hear what is going through Dean’s head that’s led to such a dramatic shift, but he abstains. Just barely, but he manages.

“There’s no need for it to be a secret.”

Dean laughs scornfully, and Castiel loathes the sound.

“Yeah, because it’d go over so well if everyone knew I was into dudes.”

Castiel takes the opening, Dean’s brief moment of honestly, and places a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“You place too high a value on what others think of you.”

“You say that like my reputation isn’t half my job,” Dean protests, but he doesn’t dislodge Cas’s hand.

“Your reputation as a hunter is well-earned. It’s based on who you’ve saved, not who you’ve had sex with.”

“I’ve never—“ Dean begins, but cuts himself off.

Castiel knows that, too, of course, but he wouldn’t admit to that much knowledge.

Just like he’ll never admit that he knows what Dean’s thought of Cas in absent moments of speculation and more purposeful, very rare times of introspection.

That is something Castiel would unlearn if he could. He apprehended his lesson on human privacy too late. It hardly matters that Dean’s feelings are requited completely, because it was information Castiel knows he was never meant to possess.

“Alright,” Dean relents shakily. “Let’s, hypothetically, say I was into both. Where do I go from there? Is there an instruction manual somewhere?”

“Like most aspects of humanity, there is no manual for this,” Castiel says with sympathy. “I’ve found solace in my friendship with you and with Sam.” 

Dean recoils at the sound of his brother’s name and says, “Jesus, I forgot about Sam.”

“What about Sam?”

“He’s got bigger fish to fry than a bicurious older brother.”

“Bicurious isn’t really the appropriate—“

“Hey, I’m easing my way into it,” Dean interjects.

Castiel nods thoughtfully.

“Perhaps now isn’t the right time to confide in your brother. But if you would be comfortable, you’re always welcome to confide in me. It’s not as though you could say anything that would shock me,” Castiel muses.

He’s surprised when instead of the firm rejection he’d been expecting, Dean abruptly barks with laughter.

Baffled, Cas wonders what he’s said that could provoke such a reaction but comes up blank.

Dean looks pointedly at where Castiel’s hand rests still on his shoulder, and Cas removes it without comment, still concerned.

“If you only knew, Cas, Your head’d spin like a fucking top.”

Castiel has an inkling now, the barest intimation of an idea of what Dean had found so funny, and he’s overcome with the possibility of it. He blinks slowly, noting that Dean is staring unabashedly at him. He could hardly be so lucky that Dean’s idle fantasies would be of any consequence, but hope blooms insidiously in his breast.

“Try me,” he challenges.

Dean looks stunned, eyes wide with dilated pupils and cheeks so flushed that they practically glow in the darkness of the stopped car. His lips part as he considers what he’s about to say.

“I thought about fucking that siren we hunted back in ’09.” Dean says breathlessly.

“I would be surprised if you hadn’t.”

“I have a crush on Dr. Sexy,” Dean continues, a little manic.

Castiel can’t suppress the small, fond smile as it dawns on him.

“That much was clear, yes.”

“This guy was following me on a hunt. I thought he was coming onto me, and when I found out it was an act, I was actually disappointed.” 

“Anyone would be.” 

“My first wet dream was about Han Solo.” 

Castiel coughs.

“I was already aware,” he confesses, reluctant.

Dean’s blush deepens, but he continues.

“I think I was in love with Benny,” he discloses solemnly.

Castiel perhaps did not _want_ to hear this, but his head certainly isn’t spinning with revelation. 

“I’m sorry,” Cas covers one of Dean’s hands, still wrapped vice-tight around the steering wheel.

“I…” Dean falters.

“You can’t have run out already,” Castiel prompts, rubbing his thumb in circles on the back of Dean’s hand and watching raptly as the tension leaves his fingers. When he dares a glance, he notices that Dean is also standing at where their hands are connected.

Castiel would pull away, but he’s too thrilled at the contact to seriously entertain the proposition. Furthermore, Dean seems to be gathering some sort of fortitude, preparing for another wind, and Castiel is afraid of disturbing his concentration.

“I was going to tell you I loved you in the crypt.”

“You _were_ ,” Castiel repeats doubtfully.

The small hope he’d fostered blossoms bright and clear when he understands the enormity of what Dean has managed to confess. Pride and reverence consume Castiel’s thoughts until he can’t fight his grin.

“I’m trying here,” Dean grouses without conviction. Castiel realizes he’s gotten what he’s been aiming for for the duration of their trip. Dean’s smile is small, but it’s unburdened in this moment by doubt or fear or grief. In this fleeting, improbable moment, Castiel has made Dean happy.

“I would give up the entirety of Heaven if I could ensure that you always had reason to smile,” Cas tells him.

It’s the wrong thing to say—Dean’s smile slips away, proving that Castiel can’t guarantee Dean’s happiness anymore now than he could ten minutes prior, but the potential is still there, and Cas clings to it.

“Too bad it doesn’t work like that,” Dean mutters.

Castiel can’t bear now to see the heaviness creep into Dean’s face, and he’s moved by desperation when he raises a hand to cup Dean’s cheek.

“Cas, what are you doing?” Dean asks. He sounds tired, drained, and Cas is determined to remedy that if he can.

“I love you, Dean Winchester,” he proclaims it with the weight of the cosmos behind him, He holds Dean’s face in his hands carefully, gently the way humans always hold something precious. He presses his lips to Dean’s, resolute to distinguish this kiss of devotion from his prior experience. 

It’s brief, chaste. When he pulls away, Dean doesn’t smile, but he looks lighter.

“We should probably head back,” Dean says after a period of mutual silence.

Nothing has changed, Castiel recognizes like a crushing blow. Sam is still dying, Heaven is still in chaos, and Dean is still yoked with a weight no single man should have to bear.

But Cas acknowledges with weak optimism that there is one less burden for him to bear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visit me on [tumblr.](http://mortgageonmybody.tumblr.com/)


End file.
